Use of the first National Early Warning Score recorded within 24 hours of admission to estimate the risk of in-hospital mortality in unplanned COVID-19 patients: a retrospective cohort study.

The index or on-admission NEWS and NEWS2 offers lower discrimination for COVID-19 admissions versus non-COVID-19 admissions. The index NEWS2 was not proven to be better than the index NEWS. For each value of the index NEWS/NEWS2, COVID-19 admissions had a substantially higher risk of mortality than non-COVID-19 admissions which reflects the increased baseline mortality risk of COVID-19.